December 31, 2009

Happy New Year To All!

So 2009 heads into the record books, and I, for one, am glad to see the back of it. The passing of Momzerduck made this the worst year ever, personally, and sure makes 2010 look bleak. Still, there were some good things that occurred in the past 365 days. Consider:

The Japanese Grand Prix brought us the weirdest qualy session I've ever witnessed, with some repaving in the Degner Curve being the main culprit for the three red flags and multiple yellows. One of the red flags was for Timo Glock's accident, which knocked him out for the season with a fractured vertebra.

So, that about covers the year here at The Pond, but I can't end it without thanking Big Poppa Pixy for his hosting of this blog. I would be remiss if I didn't also thank you, dear readers, for coming back here every so often. You've made it all worthwhile, and you're helping me make it through the worst stretch I can imagine. Thank you.Happy New Year, everybody!

December 30, 2009

The Flock Has A Sad Today

Twenty-two years ago, Christine Christopher and Ian Knight of Ringwood, England, rescued a small, injured duckling that had been abandoned by its mother as the runt of the litter. They named it Edward, a name that turned out to be a poor choice when the duck began laying eggs.

Renaming the duck Edwina, the two nursed the little duckette to full health then returned it to the lake where they had first encountered it.

Edwina followed them back home, where she became fond of tea and toast.

For two decades, Edwina lived with the couple. This past July, the British Trust for Ornithology claimed she was the oldest known wild mallard in the U.K.

"She hadn't been well over Christmas. Her legs were a bit wobbly, and she wasn't her normal self. We were planning to take her to the vet."

This past Monday, Edwina was found dead in her duckrun at the age of 22. She was buried in the family garden with an ornamental duck placed on top of her final resting place as a memorial.

The Pond sends its condolences and thanks to the Knights for their care of Edwina.

December 29, 2009

Some F1 News and Reactions

As you remember, Michael "Slappy" Schumacher has returned to F1 as a driver for the new Mercedes team. His contract is for three years at a reported £7million per, after which he'll become a spokesman and consultant for Mercedes-Benz. Sounds a lot like his old setup for Ferrari, actually. The Daimler Executive Council, directors of Mercedes' parent company, is grumbling about the cost of the contract, saying that the laid-off workstaff can't understand the whole thing and thinks that Mercedes should, instead, pull out of F1. That won't happen, but they have a point... after all, Honda, Toyota and BMW thought that way.

Luca di Montezemelo, Ferrari head honcho, is putting a brave face on Slappy's leaving, saying that it's good for F1, and if something is good for F1 then it's good for Ferrari. Inside, though, you've gotta think that he's seething. Throw in the fact that Slappy will be teaming again with Ross Brawn, the combination that led to five Championships for Ferrari, and di Montezemelo must be wondering where the luster behind the red cars has gone. I think it disappeared when Lucky Luca unceremoniously shoved Slappy out the door back in 2006. Schumi didn't want to go, but Ferrari wanted Massa and Raikkonen instead... and forced arguably the best driver in F1 history to retire.

Of course, if Slappy is back, of course there have to be rumors that lil' brother Ralf will be returning to F1 as well, this time with Toro Rosso. I think I speak for all F1 fans worldwide when I say "No. Please, no. Just... no."

2010 is going to be a very interesting season, just chock full of built-in storylines. For example, Britain (McLaren, Button, Hamilton) vs Germany (Mercedes, Rosberg, Schumacher), McLaren vs Ferrari vs Mercedes, Hamilton (2008 Driver Champion) vs Button (2009 Driver Champion) on the same team, four new teams on the grid (or five if you include Sauber coming back), Alonso vs Massa at Ferrari... and that's just off the top of my head.

Speaking of new teams, there are visible signs of life at USF1! They (finally) activated their website, which you can see here, but more importantly there's a video on it that shows (amongst other things) substantial progress on the building of the actual chassis... and a good idea of what the car will actually look like. On the wall in one shot of the video, there's a CAD print of a F1 racer:...which doesn't actually mean anything, you're saying to yourself. To which I'd say, I agree entirely. Except for the extended sequence that's shown a few moments later, as the team makes the monocoque and the nose of the car out of foam, plastic molds, and then finally carbon fiber. Here's a screenshot from that:Please note that the verticals lean backwards, just like they do in the CAD drawing. Carbon fiber isn't cheap, it's not likely that a new startup like USF1 would be making noses just to fark with us.

I think we now know what the USF1 car is gonna look like. Now if only we had a rolling chassis to drool over...

Finally, one piece of good news to report! SPEED officially announced that they've re-upped their contract with Formula One Management, meaning that they'll continue to be the network to cover F1 for the foreseeable future. The Legendary Announce Team will be back, as well.

The Hamilton-vs-Button competition will be particularly interesting since they'll be driving the same car, so any differences in performance will mainly be due to driver skill. And it's also near-rookie versus old-pro. My money is on Hamilton.

I don't anticipate any bad blood there. We won't hear any public tantrums from either of them.

The experience from 2009 seems to have been that it can be useful but it isn't overwhelming, and it is heavy. The Brawns didn't have it, and they kind of won everything. So will the designers move away from it? Or think that it can be done better, and used better?

4
Nobody will be using KERS; it was removed from the tech regs for 2010. None of the teams liked it, after all. Hell, Ferrari used it for the entire season, but only because the alternative was removing it and filling the empty hole with a like weight of ballast, as the car was so sensitive to weight changes as to make it undriveable otherwise. Couldn't even move the ballast around.

December 27, 2009

The "Win A Book From Wonderduck" Contest!

Last year around this time, I stumbled upon and purchased a copy of A Dawn Like Thunder by Robert Mrazek. This book, an oral history of Torpedo Squadron 8 off the USS Hornet, amongst others, may have been the best piece of military history to come out in 2008. Certainly it was the best that I read! I liked it so much, I reviewed it here, only the second book review I've ever done here on The Pond. Well, my uncle JoeDuck gave me a copy of the trade-paperback version of A Dawn Like Thunder for Christmas! A fantastic gift indeed, but I surely don't need two copies of the book... but here's YOUR chance to Win A Book From Wonderduck!

The book in question. Duck not included.

Tell me why I should send you a copy of this book for your library! You can write it on your blog if you have one (just include a link to the post here), or you can write it here if you don't. Feel free to accompany the post with charts, graphs, pictures, bribes, ducks, whatever you think it'll take to win the contest! As long as it's legal. One entry per person. Do not taunt happy fun ball. Entries must be in by 1159pm (Pond Time) on January 2nd, 2010. I will be the sole judge of this contest and my decision is final. Other than that, there are no rules! Go wild!

I'm looking forward to this!

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that I'll handle the shipping, so no fear that way. As long you've got a location that FedEx ships to, that is. US residents only, I'm afraid, as I can't handle the cost of shipping this to, say, Australia. Sorry, Pixy.

2
Well, it's much better written. It also doesn't just follow one person (Gay), it deals with many, many pilots and ground crew. It's an exciting history of what may be the single most decorated air unit in US history, and is almost certainly the most decorated Naval Air unit.

It covers Midway, with an emphasis on the detachment that flew Avengers from the Atoll itself, and Guadalcanal. VT-8 was pretty much disbanded after that.

I think the book would make an absolutely spiffy companion volume to Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway and Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Airpower 1909-1941. Both are very interesting volumes with a non-traditional approach to the subject matter (I recommend them).

I've made it back from Albuquerque. I've been home for about an hour or so... about 10 hours after Ph.Duck and I left Uncle JoeDuck's place. Read that again: 10 hours!

We got to the Albuquerque International Sunport at 1145am Mountain time for a 1pm flight. Breezed through security while giving the screener a good laugh when he saw the World Market holiday rubber duckies in my carry-on, went right to our gate... and saw that the flight had been delayed until 2pm. Weather at O'Hare was piss-poor and getting worse.

Oh, great. JUST peachy.

Still, we did board at 2pm and did take off at about 215pm, so American Eagle got that part right. A rather bumpy climb to altitude later (it was actually snowing in Albuquerque today), and we were on our way. It was on the descent to O'Hare, however, that the flight took an ugly turn. As soon as we left cruising altitude, we were in the clouds, and we wouldn't escape them until a minute or so before we landed. That, my friends, was not pleasant... not in the least.

Turned out that we had some exciting crosswinds across the runway. It's rather disconcerting to feel the plane heel from port to starboard and back a few times when you're about to touch down, lemme tell ya. We touched down fairly hard, the pilot slammed on the brakes immediately, reversed the engines, threw out the anchor, and even dragged his feet to get us to stop. Slipping and sliding, but eventually we did stop. Then we starting taxiing to our gate... and went right by it. One nice scenic tour of the O'Hare "back lots" later, we approached our gate again... and again, went right by it. WTF??? The Captain then gets on the intercom and says, essentially, that American Airlines couldn't get their act together and there were a few extra jets blocking the gate. Oh joy.

So again, around we went. About halfway through this third circuit, I look out the window and see a BIG PLANE!!! RIGHT THERE!!! MOVING FAST!!! Our pilot slammed on the brakes, the BIG PLANE!!!, a Continental Airlines widebody, slammed on the brakes, and disaster was avoided... but not by enough to suit me, everybody on the right side of the plane, and our collective bladders. Meanwhile, the head flight attendant is chatting on her cellphone and snapping her gum. Oi.

At 7pm Central time (about 2 hours late), we deplaned into chaos. While Ph.Duck went in search of the loo, I found myself chatting to a pilot. According to him, O'Hare had been screwed up all day. Seems flights are scheduled so tightly at the world's busiest (or second busiest, depending on how you measure it) airport that one little problem causes a cascading series of backups and delays... and the weather had been causing havoc. Depending on when you were looking outside, it had been raining, snowing, sleeting, freezing rain, ice storming, rain of frogs, meteorites, hail of fire, you name it. Again, according to this pilot, at one point there were four hour delays on some flights east.

Bladders emptied, Ph.Duck and I went off to catch the bus back to Duckford. When it finally showed up, 20 minutes late, the driver told us that the roads were "sheer ice" and it might take two hours to get home. Well, it didn't... it only took 100 minutes, instead of the hour it usually takes. The roads in Duckford were... well, wet and sloppy. I suspect by sometime on Xmas Eve, they'll be ice rinks. At 1045pm, I walked through the door of Pond Central exhausted, tired, and hungry... and home.

Very glad to hear you're finally safe at home. That sounds like it would have made a good sequel to to one of those "Airport" movies.

Posted by: Mallory at December 24, 2009 10:20 AM (WJ2qy)

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Glad you made it home in time for Christmas Duckmas! As for your comment about O'Hare being the "second busiest" airport, I think that Oshkosh Wisconsin still ranks as the busiest during the annual EAA Fly-In. The last time I was there during the late 80's, the north-south runway looked like a carrier deck as people departed after the afternoon airshows.

The controllers lined up the small planes side-by-side on the runway, and single file on the adjacent taxiway. Coordinating by walkie-talkies, the controllers would point at each aircraft in turn with brightly colored batons, then wave them down runway towards the south (luckily the wind was usually favorable). And while this was going on, the east-west runway to the north was handling a steady stream of arrivals and departures.

Will his neck hold? His return will probably be like Michael Jordan's second "comeback" - all fanfare and no results. He won't look as satanic out of the red livery - but he can't hide the red glow in his eyes...

The orders were for simple fare: croquettes for both, gyoza for the human, cali rolls for the duck. While the croquettes and gyoza were tasty indeed, the sushi wouldn't've made it to the table without inquiries as to where it had gone to.

In between bites, they chatted mostly about either linux or anime... go figure. It turns out that, for the most part, what show one liked, the other did not... save for Azumanga Daioh and Kampfer, of which the duck had only yet seen a couple of episodes.

Still and all, a good time was had. Comestibles were masticated, beverages were imbibed, and the tall one was kind enough to pick up the tab.

Thanks for lunch, Pete! A pleasure to meet you, and my offer stands: you ever make it out Duckford way, lemme know!

2
If we ever run into Lovecraftian monsters from an incomprehensible Riemannian corner of reality, we can just show them Azumanga Daioh and send them off with some copies of Yotsuba& and all will be well.

I attracted a little bit of attention while I took this shot, I'm afraid. Security attention, to be exact. See, this particular mall was the one where a dumb bumbler had planned to set off hand grenades during christmas rush three years ago, and I guess they're a little shy about the whole "people taking photographs" thing.

The security guy whipped out his iPhone, took a look at The Pond (and last year's 12 Days of Duckmas), then let me finish taking the pictures.

There were also three generations of women from one family shopping that stopped and coo'd over the duckies, so that was fun... at this point, I'd like to say hello to the Trotten family (I hope I got that right)!

Ph.Duck and I are returning to Duckford tomorrow afternoon, weather permitting.

I guess you're not used to mountains, are you? Not a lot of those in Illinois.

Lots of mountains here, of course; I live near several stratovolcanoes. It was one of the things that creeped me out about Boston: no skyline. The only skyline was buildings, and the occasional hill. The "tallest mountain" in that region (a peak in New Hampshire) wouldn't even rate a name in the Cascades.

2
I'm quite amazed by the mountains, having lived my entire life in the midwest. I visited Seattle a decade or so ago, so I'm not entirely unfamiliar with such things, but it really is completely different from what I'm used to.

3
To clarify: having lived where it is, essentially, flat all my life and being able to see a horizon fifty miles away (or whatever it is), being surrounded by mountains and big hills in Seattle actually made me feel claustrophobic.

Here in Albuquerque, though, the mountains are basically all on one side of the city. I can look one direction and feel at home (except, of course, for the completely different type of trees, desert, etc etc etc), then look the other way and see mountains! Big ones! Right there! Wow!

December 18, 2009

The picture of Angel that I used last year was easily my favorite, and this one doesn't measure up to that one. It was actually my fallback photo, in case the planned one failed... which it did. If you'd like to see an example, click "more"...

December 17, 2009

Xmas With The Librarian

It's the last Thursday before Christmas, and since I'm going to New Mexico for a few days on Saturday, The Librarian and I decided to make tonight our Christmas celebration. So, after watching Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which is great by the way, we exchanged gifts.

Look, The Librarian gives the best presents. Last year, she conspired with Momzerduck to give me the Rubber Duck Factory. This year, though, she nearly beat that. She gave me this:It's a body pillowcase, in case you can't tell, featuring Nagisa and Sanae Furukawa! Even better, it's a promo item, meaning it wasn't actually for sale. Better still, I think it's from the game as opposed to the anime, since KyoAni's logo doesn't appear anywhere on it. That's far from certain, though.

Yes, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but it's amazingly cool anyway! Thanks, The Librarian!!!

3Wasn't it supposed to be three ducks today? Or did I sleep right through it?

Posted by: Siergen at December 16, 2009 07:19 PM (hu1Gq)

4
Alas, Siergen, I don't have enough discreet holiday duckies to do an ever-increasing number like that. However, if that's what you're looking for, might I suggest GreyDuck's Quacked Panes? He, too, is doing a 12 Days of Christmas, but in comic form.

He posted Day 8 today, coincidentally.

Actually, even if that's not what you're looking for, you should check it out anyway... it's quite good!

December 15, 2009

The Second Day of Duckmas

Happy Hanukkah (a few days late)!I took a lot of pics for this one, and I really couldn't decide which one I liked the best. In the end, I went with the one above, because the stained glass looks nice, but I can't not post the other one. Click "more" to see it...

3
There's not much that dates from 1891 on the Duck U. campus. The arch is a nice spot to sit and eat a sandwich at certain times of year. The perspective on this shot is tricky - could one of the ducks have floated in the lower part of the eight? Is that stone vertical or horizontal?

Posted by: vaucanson's duck at December 16, 2009 10:26 AM (XVJDy)

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It's mostly horizontal, Vauc. There's maybe a 15° angle from top to bottom. Certainly not very steep, but it's there.

And yes, a duck could float in the bottom of the 8, and the top of the 9, for that matter. Maybe even in the top of the 8, if it's a small duck. Might have to try that next time it rains...